A public trial of a previous digital Opal card system was in place from June 2022 to 7 June 2023, the program was known as
Opal+. Opal+ allowed commuters to pay a certain amount of money for a set number of services for a specified time period. A similar approach was taken in 2019 and a standalone digital card was trialed in 2020, the digital Opal card was trialed for one year. Funding for the Opal 2.0 upgrade was first announced by the
New South Wales government in June 2022 as a response to ageing infrastructure. $567.9million was invested in the project in the 2022–23 state government budget. In 2024, the New South Wales government renewed its contract with
Cubic to operate the original Opal card system after it had been in place for 14 years and was due to lapse in September. Transport for NSW extended the contract until September 2026. In January 2025,
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the project was internally targeting a release date of September 2027, further than the original plan of mid-2026. In December 2024,
tenders for the Opal 2.0 system closed. On 16 April 2026, concession and
pensioner Opal cards were enabled for use with
credit,
debit cards,
mobile phones or other capable
digital devices, previously only adult fares were accepted using these devices. On 28 April 2026, the government announced that
INIT Pty Ltd will deliver account based ticketing and
Trapeze Group will design the bus transport technology. ==Features==